KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes was supposed to be compromised by the high right ankle sprain he sustained in last week’s divisional playoff win over the Jaguars, an injury that usually takes players weeks to recover from.
Travis Kelce, Kansas City’s prolific pass-catching tight end, suddenly turned up on the injury report on Friday with back spasms that left him as a game-time decision whether he would play Sunday or not.
Then there was the Chiefs’ opponent, the Bengals and their rising-star quarterback Joe Burrow, who were supposed to be Kansas City kryptonite, having won the past three meetings with the Chiefs, including last year’s AFC title game at Arrowhead.
You know what?
None of those things mattered.
In the end, the numbers on the Arrowhead scoreboard were all that mattered: Chiefs 23, Bengals 20.
The Chiefs, hosting their fifth consecutive AFC Championship game, advanced to Super Bowl LVII in Arizona, where they’ll play the Eagles on Feb. 12. It’ll be the Chiefs’ third Super Bowl appearance in the past five years.
It, too, sets up some delicious Super Bowl subplots, beginning with Kansas City head coach Andy Reid coaching against his former team, the Eagles, whom he led to five NFC Championship games and a Super Bowl, and including Travis Kelce playing against his brother, Eagles center Jason Kelce.
Sunday’s dramatic end result came when Mahomes — his ankle sprain be damned — scrambled desperately for 5 yards and a first down and then took a late hit out of bounds from Bengals linebacker Joseph Ossai with eight seconds remaining in regulation that added a game-changing 15 yards to the play.
The penalty gave Kansas City a first down at the Cincinnati 27-yard line, setting kicker Harrison Butker up for a 45-yard game-winning field goal on a ball that barely scraped over the crossbar with three seconds remaining.
On a night in which the wind-chill temperatures hovered around zero, the ball seemed to hang in the air forever.
“I knew it was going to go through the uprights in terms of the direction, but I just didn’t know if it was going to have the distance, so I didn’t want to celebrate too early,” Butker said.
It would never have had a chance had Mahomes not drawn that penalty.
“At some points in games, you’ve got to just put it all on the line,” Mahomes said of his scramble on his bad wheel. “I knew I was going to get there somehow.”
He did, thanks to Ossai’s ill-advised shove out of bounds.
Mahomes was who he always is: The best quarterback in the sport. He was the best player on the field, completing 29 of 43 for 326 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions despite the gimpy ankle.
Kelce — back spasms be damned — was who he always is: The best tight end in the sport, finishing with seven receptions for 78 yards and a touchdown that gave the Chiefs a 13-3 lead in the second quarter.
The Mahomes ankle and the Kelce back?
Didn’t matter.
The Chiefs were better than the Bengals, who ended Kansas City’s season a year ago in this game at Arrowhead, 27-24, on a game-winning field goal, and were riding a franchise-record 10-game winning streak.
Before Sunday night, this rivalry was beginning to look rather one-sided with Burrow so successful against Kansas City that his teammate, cornerback Mike Hilton, coined Arrowhead “Burrowhead.”
The Bengals were chirpy entering this game, something the Chiefs quietly digested during the week and stewed over.
“My whole offseason was dedicated to this moment,” Chiefs defensive tackle Chris Jones, who recorded the first two postseason sacks of his career, said. “Burrowhead? This is Arrowhead. Remember that.”
Chiefs players had been chafed all week about the “Burrowhead” thing, and after the game there was some serious crowing from them.
“Is this thing still called ‘Arrowhead?’ ” Mahomes yelled. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen the guys as pumped up as they were before this game with all the trash talk. We wanted to be here and we wanted to play this team. We got them at Arrowhead Stadium and we got them this time. There was a lot of stuff, a lot of talk. I mean, the mayor came at me, man.”
Indeed, Cincinnati mayor Aftab Pureval, in the lead-up to the game, tweaked Mahomes for being 0-3 against the Bengals and Burrow, saying that Burrow could be considered Mahomes’ father.
“I got some words for that Cincinnati mayor — know yo’ role and shut yo’ mouth,” Kelce shouted.
On this night, it would be no cigar for Cincinnati, which has become known for Burrow and his teammates smoking victory stogies postgame. The Buffalo visiting locker room probably still carries the stench from the smoke after last week’s Bengals win there.
“I’ll tell you what makes this so special, this Chiefs-Bengals thing has become a whole rivalry and that’s a great team over there but they do a lot of trash-talking,” Chiefs running back Jerick McKinnon told The Post. “When you do a lot of trash-talking you’re going to get humbled. That’s what happened today: They got humbled.
“We had to turn the page today. It’s a new leaf.”
